Spider
by WhiteLadyDragon
Summary: Believe it or not, Misa was fond of spiders. They reminded her of the feelings--conflicting, perhaps--she had for the two she valued the most.


_**Disclaimer! **_**All fictional entities featured/ mentioned in this segment belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. **

**An attempt to make more sense of Misa's character, in regards to her feelings for Light and Kira, even if they actually are one and the same. Inspired by the shape of Misa's hair. But then, the author behind this has always been sort of cockeyed. **

**Please bear in mind that Misa and Light are still amnesiacs around the time setting this takes place. In other words, this is during the Yotsuba Arc, just a while before Misa investigates Higuchi. **

_**SPIDER**_

"_Ah, Aizawa, look out!" _

Matsuda rolled up the newspaper in his trembling hands. Like an arcade boy hastily whacking moles, he brought it down on his teammate's head like a mallet with a hollow _whap! _Several _whaps_, actually, each one injecting a bewildered Aizawa's face with a darker and furious shade.

Once he recovered from the shock of getting whacked over the brow with the morning paper, Aizawa's hand fired over his shoulder and snapped around Matsuda's wrist. "What the hell, Matsuda?" he barked.

His inferior's face also became flushed with color, an embarrassed pink in contrast to his indignant red. "S-spi-spid—there was a spider hanging over your head, Aizawa!" sputtered Matsuda. "But I—I think I got it. I think I—_gah! _There it goes!"

Sure enough, a nimble spider, about as small as a gumdrop, scurried down the table at a remarkable speed for a bug, over stacks of confidential files and across the keyboard. Matsuda dove after it, just about sending Aizawa rolling three feet away in his swivel chair and toppling his piping hot mug of coffee across the surface of the table. Had Aizawa not been distracted by the milky black drink stalking towards the files, he might've snatched Matsuda up by the collar and beat him right then and there until he finally got a gram of sense in his head.

On the other end, meanwhile, Misa huddled behind Light, momentarily oblivious to everything but the sensation of her chin resting on his shoulder, the scent of his hair, and the feverish tap-dancing of his fingers across his keyboard. "So, Light, I've been thinking: you're smart. Do you think there's a way you can trick Ryuzaki into letting you out of the handcuffs? Just for an hour or two, so we can be alone?" she whispered into his ear.

L, who had been up to research of his own, peeled his unblinking gaze from the documents pinched in his hands to the girl looming over his partner. "I can hear you exceptionally well, you know," said he.

"Sorry, Misa," Light murmured, his eyes never leaving the computer screen for even a second. "But believe it or not, tracking down a serial killer is more important than going on a date every day."

"But _Liiiight, _you've been stuck here in front of the computer for hours! If you keep it up, you're gonna end up looking like—ah, a _spider!"_

"What?"

Misa steered Light's head to the right and down at the desk, much to his chagrin. "Look, Light, a spider!" she squealed with delight, pointing a painted nail at the tiny creature scrambling towards them. It braked at the foot of Light's keyboard, possibly to catch its breath.

L peered over Light's other shoulder, his finger hooked into his bottom lip. "Hmm…_Dictyna felis_," he identified, "an arachnid native to Japan with a preference for summer."

"Um…'spider' is good enough, don't you think?" said Misa.

"The only good spider is a _dead _one!" cried Matsuda, who had done a terrific job of leaving a trail of disheveled documents in his wake in his pursuit of the creepy-crawly. His shadow eclipsed the lot of them, and he was about to bring down the paper of punishment when—

"_Matsu, STOP!" _

With a toss of her yellow pigtails, Misa clapped her hands around the poor spider like a safeguard, glancing up at the young cop with eyes so wide and pleading that he literally froze with the paper-club held adjacent to his forehead. Matsuda couldn't hold that stance for very long, though; a moment later, he crashed onto his knees, twitching all over from muscle weakened by sheepishness.

"How could you, Matsu? Picking on such a cute little thing? For shame!" snapped Misa.

"Ah, I'm—I'm sorry, Misa," mumbled Matsuda, a bead of sweat shining from his temple. "Spiders k-kind of creep me out."

Misa cocked her head to a side. "Huh? Just _what's_ so creepy about them?"

For a moment, no one said a word. The men stared at her almost as if she'd spoken in tongues. That sort of figured; models—women in general—were mostly expected to faint dead when it came to spiders, not coddle them like they might a kitten or a panda cub. Or Light, in Misa's case.

L spoke up: "The real question is how an arachnid that usually inhabits foliage managed to infiltrate the building." He scanned the perimeters of the high ceiling, as though looking for cracks or any other kind of weak point suitable for a spider to bypass.

Misa cupped the spider in her palms, peering down at it through the cracks of her fingers with the most adoration one could have for an animal. "Spiders are cool. They make the world a better place by catching and eating flies and mosquitoes and cockroaches and all kinds of icky bugs. If we didn't have them, the world would be _lousy _with pests!"

She pulled away and gazed up at the ceiling, a ghost of a smile rippling through her lips. "Kind of like Kira," she whispered. "Just like Kira."

For a while more, a sort of awkward silence draped the room. Matsuda clapped a hand behind his head. L chewed on his thumbnail. Light narrowed his eyes at his self-proclaimed girlfriend.

"…_Yeah_, sure. Look, Misa, could you take that spider outside? Before Matsuda has another panic attack?"

"Okay, Light!" she cheered, willing to do just about anything for her sweetheart. She headed for the exit with her hands out in front of her, careful to tread softly so as not to frighten the poor thing.

In the meantime, as soon as he'd cleaned up the coffee, Aizawa stormed up behind Matsuda to snatch the rolled-up newspaper and apply several _whaps _to the top of his head.

"There you go, little spider," cooed Misa as she knelt down to the base of a shrub outside the building. "You'll be safe here."

She didn't retreat back inside right away; instead, she lingered on her knees to watch her eight-legged friend scurry up the stem and underneath a leaf. Indeed, spiders had fascinated her for the longest time, from the way they spun webs finer than silk to the way they trapped bugs and sucked the blood and guts out of them.

They _were_ just like Kira, in that sense. Kira's plan to create a utopia for everyone to enjoy, in her head, was like spinning a great, beautiful web strung with pearls of morning dew, invulnerable to any creepy bug who was unfortunate enough to be caught within it, and ultimately, destroyed by Kira himself.

The spider proceeded to jump off the tip of a leaf that dangled a suitable distance from the ground, leaving a fine string behind it as it floated to the bush, its spindly legs seeming to wave at an awestruck Misa. It was already constructing its web, and she was the sole witness to the miracle. Kind of like she had witnessed Kira all those months ago.

She could still remember the spider she had been watching in the midst of her grief, keeping perfectly still in the center of its web like an exotic jewel as it waited for an ugly fly to slip into its trap. For a spell, it seemed as though it would never catch its prey, buzzing so tantalizingly close, only to pull far out of reach.

_Just like that bastard who'd destroyed my family…_

Then, it'd happened. A friend of hers came rushing with the day's paper waving in her hand like a flag. Only for a moment had she turned away from the web hanging from the hollow of the branch to read the article.

The headline alone was enough to stop her own heart.

Numbed by awe, she'd glimpsed the spider from the corner of her vision, hastily tying up its prey in the corner of its web. It became still once again, patient for the venom in its bite to overpower the squirming insect, but no less victorious.

Just like justice.

…

_Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could be like a spider? If I could be like Kira? _Misa often longed to one day meet her savior, maybe to help him on his quest, even. Wishful as it sounded, she wanted to be like his web, the tool with which to catch criminals. It was the least she could give him, besides her undying gratitude.

As the spider started a second string, Misa's heart began to sink. What about Light? While Kira was trying to catch criminals, Light was trying to catch Kira. In all actuality, it did bother her a little. Of course, she didn't tell him this. Misa wanted Light to know that she was on his side, she really was. He and Ryuzaki and everyone on the team were putting their very lives at stake; she couldn't let them do this without somehow making her own contribution. She would be his web, if she had to, never mind the chance of getting shaken in the process, just as a fly vainly shook up a spider's web.

The spider began working on connecting the strands in a sort of intricate tent shape, only to rest perfectly still at the tip of the leaf. It was as though it were anxious of the girl watching it; in light of earlier events, who could blame it?

Deciding it best to leave it be, Misa gave a small, pleasant wave of her fingertips. "Good luck with your web, little spider…for both of us," she whispered.

As she stood up to head back inside, she paused to look over the shrub for one time more, a bemused frown creasing her lips. She had to wonder sometimes: between the two she loved the most, and the deadly game they played, which was the fly?

And which was the spider?

_**END**_


End file.
